[KS] (for Eckart Dege) - Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 99, Issue 7

[Frank Hoffmann]

>But one of my questions has to do with the 
>impression Eckart also had, that the church 
>services are not merely "theatrical productions 
>for foreign tourists". (...)  And who really are 
>these people in the congregation?


And why does that matter, Charles? The government 
in North Korea allows maybe 100, maybe 200 
Christian believers, and maybe (as various 
reports suggest) these are not even believers. If 
even the pastors are working for and are paid by 
the government directly .... really, what 
difference would it make if those 100 to 200 
"devoties" are actual believers and not just 
performing some theatrical production? Knowing 
the answer would only enable you to know a little 
more about the *tactics* again, not about 
policies, not about culture.

One thing that has not yet been mentioned: the 
note about "theatrical productions" for 
foreigners is leading away from the fact that 
various North Korean organizations have ever 
since the 1940s tried to attract overseas Koreans 
from the U.S., Japan, and maybe also South 
Koreans to settle there. Many of these who came 
and still come are Christians! And having some 
churches there is then also part of the 
persuasion package. In the 1970s (or was it the 
early 1980s?) a former SOUTH Korean ambassador to 
Germany (1950s or 60s), for example, retired to 
North Korea and wrote some propagandistic book 
there (mixing family ties, anti-Americanism, 
etc.). Last year a North Korean lawyer called me 
up to ask me to help with some paperwork for a 
retired South Korean nurse who had worked in 
Berlin and who had now resettled to P'yôngyang, 
of course a devoted Christian. (I didn't.) Some 
people are already satisfied with Potemkin 
villages, maybe because their entire lifes that 
is what they saw, I am not sure.


Best,
Frank